


Carbon and Ash

by accidentalauthoress



Category: NCIS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-09-07 06:21:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20304871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/accidentalauthoress/pseuds/accidentalauthoress
Summary: What if Gibbs hadn't come to Abby's rescue in Driven? Would McGee be able to save her or would the team lose one of their most valuable members? This is my first ever fanfic, sooo R&R. Please and thank you. )





	1. Chapter 1

Everything had been fine ten minutes before. But Abby just had to try the storytelling narrative, just had to get in the car and try and work through what had happened herself. As soon as she crawled into the passenger seat, an overwhelming sense of dread bubbled up in her. She moved to get out, purely on impulse, but the doors slammed shut.

Abby gasped in fear. Her eyes widened to twice their normal size. She tried to dive over the seat and hit the kill switch, but the seat belt had snapped into place before she could move. A moment of dead silence and sheer panic passed before the cabin started filling with a heavy, thick gas propelled from the exhaust.

"Help! I'm trapped in here, help!"

With the concentration of the exhaust fumes filling the air around her, Abby knew that she'd be dead in a few minutes, tops. She started choking and gagging, covering her nose and mouth with her coveralls.

"McGee!" she screamed. "McGee! Timmy!"

It was no use. McGee was zoned out, absorbed in his work as she fought for her life. The seatbelt corners across her chest and her hips were growing tighter and tighter. She swore that she felt drops of blood pooling at each point of contact. The air in the vehicle was becoming thicker and thicker as the windows clouded with fog. Each of her breaths earned her less and less air.

It was no use. Her lungs were crying out, her eyes watering, the world blurring before her.

"Help!" Abby cried once more. She used her last ounce of strength to beat on the window a final time, then choked and fell limp.

*McGee POV*

"Come on, come on," I muttered again and again. I was so close to making a breakthrough on this code, I could taste it. It was just what I needed to prove myself to Tony. Probie my ass. Not for long.

All of the sudden, a cold child ran down my spine. I spun around and nearly had a heart attack. Abby was slumped over against the window, her eyes shut and her face as pale as snow. I jumped up, looking around frantically for something to break the window with. I finally grabbed the stool out from under me and crashed its legs through the window. I fumbled with the kill switch until the car released its death grip on my partner.

Broken glass rained all over Abby as I shattered the window, sprinkling her hair with light and lacerating her skin. Toxic fumes rushed out of the car and into my lungs as I reached in and grabbed Abby.

No, no, no, no God no.

She was completely limp. Her lips were turning blue as she slumped out of my arms down on the cold ground.

"DUCKY! GIBBS! HELP!" I screamed, to no avail.

Abby took a last gasping breath on the floor in front of me, then fell silent.


	2. Chapter 2

As McGee stood frozen, staring at his friend on the floor before him, something in him broke. Suddenly, he was a flurry of motion. One shaking hand was on Abby's neck, feeling her weak and thready pulse, and another was over her mouth, hoping against hope that he would feel her take another breath. No matter how light, no matter how shallow. After five seconds passed, McGee decided he had waited long enough.

No one ever prepares you for the gritty realities of CPR. TV and movies gloss it over, making it look glamorous and dramatic and sexy. McGee was learning it was anything but as he crashed his lips over Abby's and tried to breathe life into her still form. The chest compressions were the worst, as he heard her ribs breaking and her cartilage cracking under his force. Still, he didn't stop.

Between breaths, McGee wrestled the cell phone out of his pocket and slid to the emergency call screen.

Breath.

9

Breath.

1

Compressions, compressions, compressions….

1, and send.

By the time the operator answered, asking his emergency, McGee was out of breath and gasping. He managed to stammer out what had happened, and that they need help, really badly, right away. When the call had ended, he let his phone drop from its resting place between his head and shoulder. He couldn't have cared less if the screen shattered.

All he wanted was for Abby to be alright, and that was looking less and less likely as time passed and she grew even paler. And it was all his fault…

McGee must have started to dissociate at some point, because he would never be able to recall at what point the paramedics burst in. At first, they had tried to talk to him rationally and ask him to step away. But he was too focused to process their words.

They finally pulled him away, shaking and sweating, as they took over lifesaving measures on his fallen friend. As they loaded him into the ambulance, they had the audacity to wrap a shock blanket around his shoulders. The second he processed it, he ripped it off and tossed it to the ground.

"Take care of her," he tried to growl threateningly, but it came out shaken and full of worry.

He didn't want to look at them desperately trying to save her life, pumping air into her lungs and saline into her veins, taking vitals frantically and calling out medical codes he couldn't and didn't want to understand.

What he did understand was the sweet sound of her coughing under her oxygen mask, seconds before they arrived at the hospital.

Breathing. She's breathing.

And then, the paramedics whisked her away and she was gone again. McGee was left alone, stumbling into the waiting room, consumed by his thoughts and the thick knot in his stomach.

Now please just let her keep breathing…


End file.
